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Pati Patni Aur Woh review: Kartik Aryan & Bhumi Pednekar film is a remake nobody needed

Boring, unfunny script caters to the male ego. Pati Patni Aur Woh is the most underwhelming version of everything you’d expect.

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New Delhi: There is a time in every movie-goer’s life when their only thought while watching a film is — why was this made? It is a question that haunts you throughout Pati Patni Aur Woh. While there are many films that have come out this year alone that can easily compete for the Worst Film of the Year Award, this Kartik Aryan-starrer falls short even in that category, because you don’t want to give it a second thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwXie8qYy8E

A remake of the 1978 Sanjeev Kumar film of the same name, Pati Patni Aur Woh plays around with the concept of extramarital affairs. There have been many films on this topic, but few have been this insensitive. While the misogyny and problematic tropes in the original film can still be, at a stretch, chalked up to lack of awareness, it cannot be excused in this hyper-aware era.

To be fair, the 2019 film does tone down the obvious inappropriate humour and misogyny, but it doesn’t really try to do anything different.

Aryan plays Abhinav Tyagi, a PWD officer who has excelled academically, but has failed miserably in his social life. He is the typical, middle-class Indian male, who has technically done everything right by his parents’ book — studied hard and secured a well-paying job. And because he has achieved this and has had no other actual exposure to life, he believes that he is owed happiness in life. He marries Vedika Tripathi (Bhumi Pednekar), a bright, feisty, funny woman, who, for some reason, takes to him. Their marriage is heaven in the beginning, but as time passes and the two settle into their routines, Abhinav begins to feel bored and frustrated with the everyday monotony of life. Excitement comes in the form of Tapasya Singh (Ananya Pandey), a bright, young woman. Tempted to regain the passion and excitement he’s lost in his marriage, Abhinav weaves lie after lie and finds himself stuck in a web of his own making, with no clean escape.

The fact that the male protagonist, who is absolutely fine with the prospect of cheating on his wife, is the worst is well established. If the filmmakers had continued with that premise, the film would have still made sense. But they chose to make him as realistic as possible, and gave him a false sense of confidence and entitlement, which shines through thanks to Aryan and his penchant for such roles.

The souring marriage is shown through Abhinav’s growing discontent with the way his wife sends him off to office — it begins with a kiss and tasty packed lunches given to him lovingly and ends with him carrying a sandwich and biscuits by himself. All this because Vedika has found herself a job as well and seems to have a life of her own — the gall. This sets the tired tone for the rest of the film.

Director and writer Mudassar Aziz tries really hard to bring in the kind of humour we’ve all come to love in films set in small towns, but falls short on multiple counts. The humour, while not as offensive as one would expect with such a film, bores you more than the screenplay. Aziz spent so much of the film focusing on Abhinav wooing Tapasya and dodging Vedika that by the time the story reaches its climax, you just want the end credits to roll.

Aryan delivers his usual annoyed-man one-liners, and what-about-us-poor-men speech, which now (thankfully) does not end with a marital rape joke. But his performance is nothing to write home about.

Pednekar and Pandey both get surprisingly strong, smart characters to play, which they do to the best of their ability and, yet, fail to stand out in any way. Aparshakti Khurrana (who seems to be following his brother’s footsteps) provides the film’s meagre comic relief — but then you realise he has played a variation of the same character in every film he’s done so far.

There will be many who will still insist on watching this film, because it looks like a fun no-brainer. To those, let me tell you this — it’s definitely a no-brainer, but not a fun one at all.

Also read: Panipat review: Almost another lavishly mounted caricature of Muslim invaders as brutes

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